Commentary and analysis to persuade people to become socialist and to act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.

Monday, February 16, 2015

South Africa's Born Frees

South Africa’s post-apartheid generation, the “born-frees”,
discontent grows. Thakeng Moreki lives in Orange Farm, a sprawling,
impoverished shantytown 40 miles south of Johannesburg, the largest city in
South Africa—his community a place bypassed by the economic gains that the end
of apartheid was supposed to bring to the nation’s poor. Unemployment exceeds
40 percent in Orange Farm, South Africa’s most populous shantytown, with
350,000 residents. And the lack of opportunity evident across the country falls
heavily on the “born frees”—those who grew up after apartheid ended in the
early 1990s. The “born frees” have begun to question their country’s leadership
amid rampant unemployment, limited opportunity and entrenched political
corruption.

“We have democracy in South Africa but leaders are like:
They eat first and then they leave what is left for the people,” Moreki said “The
people fought for democracy, but these leaders forget what they fought for.”

“Young whites still enjoy the inheritance of apartheid, and
we are still at a disadvantage because the wealth is not properly shared,” said
Thula Gumede, 21, a politics and public management major at the University of
Johannesburg. “Those who took land and resources still have it.”

Owethu Mbambo, another University of Johannesburg student,
said she shares Gumede’s view. “Affirmative action for blacks in South Africa
is attacked as unfair,” Mbambo, 22, said. “Blacks are given the moral burden to
‘get over it.’ We are told to be happy to be free. But it is only a one-way
street. White people are not changing like we are being told to change.”

Richard “Bricks” Mokolo, a paralegal and community activist
who runs the Orange Farm Human Rights Advice Center, said neoliberal economic
policies adopted by the ANC, under pressure from entities including the United
States, have structurally excluded millions. “Shortly after the election of
Mandela, I realized that the policies the government was adopting would make
poor people suffer more than under apartheid,” Mokolo said. He once led a
successful fight to stop ANC government privatization of water service in
Orange Farm. “The government and the private sector are not creating jobs. Even
college graduates are unemployed.”